Graphene light sail
A tiny sail made of the thinnest material known – one carbon-atom-thick graphene – has passed initial tests designed to show that it could be a viable material to make solar sails for spacecraft.
Light sails are one of the most promising existing space propulsion technologies that could enable us to reach other star systems within many decades.
Traditional spacecraft carry fuel to power their journeys and use complex orbital manoeuvres around other planets. But the weight of the fuel makes them difficult to launch and intricate flyby manoeuvres considerably lengthen the journey.
Solar sails need no fuel. Spacecraft equipped with them are thus much lighter and easier to launch.
Two spacecraft flown over the past decade have already demonstrated the technology, but they used sails made of polyimide and of mylar, a polyester film.
Graphene is much lighter. To test whether it could be used as a sail, researchers used a scrap just 3 millimetres across.
They dropped it from a 100-m tall tower in Bremen, Germany, to test whether it worked under vacuum and in microgravity.
Once the sail was in free-fall – effectively eliminating the effects of gravity – they shone a series of laser lights onto it, to see whether it would act as a solar sail.
Shining a 1 watt laser made the sail accelerate by up to 1 m/s2, similar to the acceleration of an office lift, but for solar sails the acceleration continues as long as sunlight keeps hitting the sails, taking spacecraft to higher and higher speeds.
“Making graphene is relatively simple and could be easily scaled up to kilometre-wide sails, though the deployment of a giant sail will be a serious challenge,” says Santiago Cartamil-Bueno, leader of the GrapheneSail team and director of SCALE Nanotech, a research start-up company operating in Estonia and Germany.
SCALE Nanotech is now looking for strategic partners to scale up the technology for an eventual test in space. The product development of the sail technology is currently accelerated through ESA’s Business Incubator Centre in Hessen and Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
Astrid Orr of ESA’s human spaceflight research programme oversees physical science experiments in weightlessness for human and robotic exploration.
She says: “This project is a wonderful example of scientific research that can be performed in weightlessness without leaving Earth.
“Dropping graphene and shooting it with lasers is fascinating. To think that this research could help scientists to send instruments through the solar system and, if one dares to dream, to distant star systems in years to come is the icing on the cake.”
The Latest Updates from Bing News & Google News
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Graphene light sail
- mechanical keyboard
After a few dark decades of membrane keyboards being the norm, the rise of the mechanical keyboard community has shined a light on what is possible with open source designs. Anyone can join in ...
- NA Proactive news snapshot: Endexx, Lion Copper and Gold, Sanatana Resources, Avalon GloboCare, Quebec Nickel UPDATE ...
Growth was limited in the second half of 2021 due to tightness in the US light-duty vehicle market ... Notably, this intercept hit a corridor, which has been dubbed the "Sail Zone" which transects the ...
- The science of becoming "interplanetary": How can humans live on Saturn's moons?
Welcome back to our ongoing "Interplanetary Series." In our previous installments, we looked at what it would take to live on Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Mars, the Main Asteroid Belt, and Jupiter's ...
- Quadcopter Ditches Batteries; Flies On Solar Power Alone
This prototype does look a bit rickety, though: all of that solar panel surface acts as a sail and will catch the wind, so we doubt it will be stable in anything more than a slight breeze.
- Science news
Current ways of synchronizing ... Semi-artificial photosynthesis integrates the high selectivity of living biosystems and the broad-range light-harvesting of semi-conductive materials, which ...
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Graphene light sail
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Space propulsion technologies
- The Technology In The Martian Is Being Created In Real Life
"In the face of overwhelming odds, I'm left with only one option: I'm going to have to science the s*** out of this." So spoke Mark Watney (Matt Damon), the title character in Ridley Scott's 2015 film ...
- Space Propulsion System Market Is Estimated To Reach A CAGR Of 14.6% During The Forecast Period From 2021 To 2028
Market revenue growth can be attributed to increasing emphasis on decreasing costs associated with space missions. Space propulsion system, particularly non-chemical propulsion, enables mass reduction ...
- The DoD plans to launch two nuke-propelled spacecraft by 2027
Two commercial enterprises have been awarded contracts by the DoD to develop the next generation of nuclear propulsion in space.
- US Companies To Develop Nuclear-powered Propulsion Systems For Space Usage By 2027
US Department of Defence's Defence Innovation Unit has awarded contracts to two private companies to develop nuclear propulsion systems due to testing in 2027.
- Global Space Propulsion Markets, 2022-2026: Nuclear Propulsion: Game-Changer for Space Exploration
System Component (Thrusters, Propellant Feed System, Nozzle), Platform (Satellite, Launch Vehicle), Orbit, End User, Orbit, Support Service, Region - Forecast to 2026" report has been added to ...
